Many Countries in #NATO# which we are expecting to defend are only short of their current commitment – Donald Trump

Nato officials had been nervously awaiting the first meeting as an indicator of how Donald Trump, who arrived in Brussels on Tuesday night, was going to behave over the next two days. Within minutes, they had their answer.

Trump, at his first meeting of the summit – with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg – described the relationship between Germany and Russia as “inappropriate”.

This summit is shaping up as the most divisive in Nato’s 69-year-old history. Normally Nato summit are mostly fixed in advance, and proceed in an orderly fashion. Trump’s first words signaled this one is not going to be like this.

He complained that German politicians have been working for Russian energy companies after leaving politics and described this as inappropriate as well. Germany is totally controlled by Russia, Trump said.

His comments were linked to the president’s push for other European countries to pay more for its defence needs, in particular Germany. The US should not have to pay the biggest share of Nato defence expenditure while Germany paid just over 1% of GDP.

The Analysis on the Nato summit # Europe must come together#

 “I think it is unfair,” Donald Trump said. Other president has raised European defence spending levels in the past but he is intent on dealing with it. “We can’t put up with it,” he said.

What precisely did Trump say about Germany?

Germany has the EU's biggest economy and has long been accused by US administrations of failing to contribute its fair share to Nato operations but Mr Trump was particularly stinging.

"Ultimately Germany will have almost 70% of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas, so you tell me - is that appropriate?" he asked at Wednesday's breakfast meeting with Mr Stoltenberg.

"Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting from 60 to 70% of their energy from Russia, and a new pipeline and you tell me if that's appropriate because I think it's not and I think it's a very bad thing for Nato."

He went on to accuse Germany of only spending "a little bit over 1%" of its economic output on defence compared to the 4.2% spent by the US "in actual numbers".

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen rejected Mr Trump's accusations of Russian control, Reuters news agency reports.

"We have a lot of issues with Russia without any doubt," she was quoted as telling a side event at the Nato summit just after Mr Trump spoke.

"On the other hand, you should keep the communication line between countries or alliances and opponents without any question."

What is the spending row?

President Trump has said the US is being "taken advantage of" by other members of the Nato alliance, which was set up in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union, of which Russia is the main successor state.

His main objection is that all but a handful of member states have still not increased their defence budgets to meet a goal of spending at least 2% of their annual economic output on defence by 2024.

Of Nato's 29 members, just five meet that target this year: the US, Greece, Estonia, the UK and Latvia. However, several, such as Poland and France are close to the mark.

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